TORONTO — Top-ranked Serena Williams rebounded to beat Italy's Flavia Pennetta 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 Tuesday in the second round of the WTA Tour's Rogers Cup. “I was really frustrated with how I was playing,” Williams said. “And then I got really angry. ... So I said, ‘Serena, you're going to have to be positive and be good to yourself out here.'“ The 21-time Grand Slam winner won a day after sister Venus Williams was eliminated in straight sets by Germany's Sabine Lisicki. The 33-year-old Williams blamed unforced errors for her early struggles. “It was a good opportunity for me because I haven't played a match on hard courts since April-ish, early, early April, after Miami,” Williams said. “It was a long time ago. So I think it was really good for me to have that match play.” Williams won the first of her three Toronto titles in 2001. Slumping Canadian star Eugenie Bouchard dropped out, falling 6-0, 5-7, 6-2 to Switzerland's Belinda Bencic in a first-round match. Bouchard has also lost 13 of her past 15 matches. “It's easy to let yourself get negative when you lose a couple of matches in a row or you know your body's not feeling great,” Bouchard said. “It's definitely been a tough road. And I feel like I'm at least not going downwards anymore. I'm trying to go on the right path. “I feel like I can be close to performing well on the court, and it's just been a long, patient kind of battle, and I feel like I'm close to turning it around.” In other first-round matches, France's Alize Cornet upset ninth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-4; qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia beat 10th-seeded Karolina Pliskova 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-2; No. 11 Ekaterina Makarova of Russia topped American qualifier Anna Tatishvili 6-3, 6-3; and American Alison Riske defeated 12th-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3). Belarus' Victoria Azarenka beat Ukraine's Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-4, and Germany's Angelique Kerber beat Japanese qualifier Misaki Doi 6-0, 6-1. — AP
